


A Distant Bell (And Stars That Fell)

by adadshi



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Body Horror, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Dead People, Emotional Hurt, Established Adam/Shiro (Voltron), Ghosts, Graphic Description of Corpses, Grief/Mourning, Hurt Shiro (Voltron), M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:41:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27079747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adadshi/pseuds/adadshi
Summary: Through the sheer curtains, there was a figure staring out to the desert sky. The curtains settled around them like a veil. Brown hands pushed the lace back and a starry eye looked up at Shiro. Just one, because Adam was completely and utterly ruined.-On his first night back on Earth, Shiro receives a visit from his late husband.
Relationships: Adam/Shiro (Voltron)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 28





	A Distant Bell (And Stars That Fell)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [only those who stay dead shall remember death](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15697944) by [awenswords](https://archiveofourown.org/users/awenswords/pseuds/awenswords). 



> some specific warnings for this fic: there's graphic descriptions of Adam and Shiro's corpses and their decomposition and graphic descriptions of Adam's death

Shiro thought it was awfully grim that he was given the keys to his dead husband’s apartment and expected to live there normally. It would’ve been different if they’d broken up- but Adam had been _killed_. Walking through their once-shared home would be like visiting a graveyard. But he was told it would only be for a few nights and he was lucky that the space hadn’t been let out to displaced citizens after it initially became vacant. Shiro thought that was quite harsh to say, but they had a point. Besides, he’d only be staying there for a few weeks while they made preparations to leave Earth again. It would be fine.

Upon entrance to the apartment, Shiro took off his shoes and blazer as if he was coming home from a day of work. Visitors always remarked that their apartment smelled welcoming. The wafting smell of Adam’s homemade curries never failed to wash away a busy day’s problems. Today the apartment smelled sterile. 

“ _Tadaima_.” He said for old times sake. There was no o _kaeri_. The absence of the response hung heavy in the air. 

Although it hadn’t been inhabited in months, Shiro couldn’t find a single speck of dust anywhere. He crept around silently, afraid to disturb the scene. It was too perfect. There should’ve been a cup still on the coffee table, brown liquid pooled at the bottom. There was a stack of perfectly good coasters on the other end of the table but Adam always thought they were unnecessary. There was a cup on the coffee table but it was the one Adam never liked and it was sitting handsomely on a coaster. It was empty. Anxiety pooled in Shiro’s stomach. 

Everything had changed in slightly unsettling ways. It was like the Garrison had cleaned the apartment and reorganised things to look as natural as possible. The dishwasher was loaded, ready to go, and there was a hamper of clothes waiting by the washing machine. Adam would never leave laundry unattended to. The radio antenna was pointed in the wrong direction- how would Adam listen to the classical music station with it like that? When he entered the study, where Adam had kept his fantastic and extensive collection of books and vinyl records, he found the desk was cleared. Adam organised the entire apartment into a perfectly ordered assembly, he cleaned every surface until it shone, but he never touched that desk.

It was an awful mockery of Adam’s life. 

There were no real remains of Adam’s body, he was told. Blackened scraps of his plane had been found out in the desert but there was nothing left of his body. The plane went up in flames in the air so by the time it hit the ground Adam was likely already cremated, his ashes mixing in with the red desert sand. He and Adam spoke about death a lot- they had to when Shiro’s expiry loomed so close- and he knew Adam wanted to be buried.

“My family has a plot in New Hampshire.” He told Shiro, “There’s a great big headstone and it was bought for fifty-five dollars back in 1889. When I die, Takashi, I want to be buried there with my mother, my father, their mothers and their fathers, all my ancestors.” He wrapped his arms around himself, “I’ll return to where I came from.”

Shiro bit back a sob. He couldn’t give Adam the life he wanted- the suburban life with a dog, two kids and a white picket fence- and now his resting place was robbed from him too. How unfair that Shiro had a body floating out there somewhere on a lonely planet, becoming one with the earth when Adam’s body couldn’t. His first body from when he died. It was out there, worms crawling through the empty eye sockets, butterflies cocooning in the ribs, vines and moss dragging the corpse down, down, six feet under and more. He’d wanted to be cremated, they’d discussed it back in those days. 

He was now confronted with the thought of Adam’s death. They’d discussed how Shiro would die in great depth (“I want to be at home, no machines, just your arms. Please hold me.”), they had to, but they felt less of a need to discuss Adam’s arrangements. Shiro didn’t know his ideal way of dying so he was left only to imagine how it truly happened. How his mouth would widen in shock and his eyes would well with tears. He’d turn his head away from the flames, eyes squeezed shut, before being swallowed whole by the great fiery beast. It would be violent. There would be no return to his ancestors.

Overcome with emotions, Shiro retreated to their bedroom. Such a sacred space, where he and Adam had spent nights together kissing, crying, laughing, doing everything that made them human, made them alive. Now Shiro was alone, crying with his face pressed against the pillow of his late husband. It didn’t smell of his cologne anymore. 

Every trace of him was gone from their home and his body was irrecoverable. Adam Wagner was gone. 

Shiro cried himself to sleep.

He woke up to bells. The gentle tinkling of bells being blown in a far-off wind. Shiro slowly opened his eyes and turned so he could see the window, the only possible cause of a draught in the room. 

The window was open, although Shiro didn’t remember it being like that. White lace curtains gently blew back into the room. He scrambled back until he hit the headboard. 

“Who- who’s there?” He whispered. Through the sheer curtains, there was a figure. They were sitting on the floor, resting their chin and arms on the windowsill, staring out to the starry desert sky. As the wind settled, so did the curtains. They fell around the figure who wore them like a veil. 

Brown hands pushed the lace back and a starry eye looked up at Shiro. Just one, because Adam was completely and utterly ruined. The glass of his spectacles was smashed and they only hung onto his face with one arm. Half of his hair was scorched off and his left ear was blackened and shrunken. But Shiro still hurriedly clambered down to him to kiss him and hold him and cry into his shoulder. He smelled faintly of smoke and rust.

“Adam.” He gasped, patting his firm chest, “Adam, you- I- you’re dead.” 

The fallen soldier took his hand and squeezed it. “But I’m here, aren’t I?”

“You are.” Shiro couldn’t help but to splutter out a laugh. He looked up at Adam and all laughter disappeared. He rested his head on his shoulder and cried, “Oh, Adam.” 

“I know.” Adam said, “I know.”

“You were the last one to go down. You held up Earth’s defence alone for six minutes. You- you did all you could.”

“My fuel tank was hit first. It drenched me. The next time I was hit, _woosh_ , I was up like a light.”

“Was it painful?”

“Incredibly.” 

“Were you scared?”

“No.” 

Shiro frowned. He wasn’t scared? Every time he piloted the Black Lion in battle it got his heart racing. He had a special connection with the Black Lion, she purred confidence into his mind and roared with fury when her team came under attack. The fear of being captured by the Galra for a second time always kept him on his toes. 

Adam had fearlessly faced the same threat in an ill-equipped Garrison plane. He held up the front alone for six whole minutes.

“I wasn’t scared.” Adam said, “The entire time I was thinking about you, Takashi. How much I loved you. I thought you’d be waiting for me.” 

Shiro’s heart wrenched when Adam called him by his name. He hadn’t been called Takashi in so long. It was worth the wait hearing it from those perfect lips now. Sadness quickly took over. Adam didn’t know he was alive. He died expecting someone to welcome him on the other side.

Shiro could hear the bell gently ringing again.

“At least I can see you now.” Adam turned his attention back to the night sky. His nose, once a handsome slope, had been eaten by the flames. “They are beautiful. I don’t blame you for leaving, Takashi. Any resentment I felt is long gone.”

“Adam, you’re not in New Hampshire.” Shiro blurted out, “Your body. It couldn’t be recovered.”

Adam slowly blinked and slid his forehead down onto the windowsill. 

“I- I’m not with them.” He said, “I don’t have my name with them?”

“You’re part of a memorial near the west wing.”

“No one visits the west wing. They’ll have it replaced in a few years.” 

“Adam-“

“They’re going to forget me, Takashi.” Adam didn’t look at him. His eyes were trained on the dark silhouettes of the desert plateaus, “I think this is the last we’ll see each other for some time.”

“I’m sorry.” Shiro knew he sounded desperate and he didn’t care. He clung onto what remained of Adam’s flight suit, “I’m sorry it didn’t go as we planned.”

“Not your fault.” Adam gathered him in his arms and pressed his nose to his hair with a yawn, “I’m tired now.”

Shiro had so many things he wanted to tell Adam. He wanted to beg for forgiveness and ask him questions. But if Adam wanted to sleep, he would sleep. When they were wed, he promised he would give Adam the world. They’d have the best life together. Things didn’t work out that way. If this was all he could give Adam, a final night lying together, then he would close his eyes and fall asleep against his chest.

“I’ll never let you become forgotten,” Shiro muttered. But Adam was already asleep, cheek pressed against the windowsill with a gentle breeze blowing his hair. Shiro pressed a kiss to his lips and shut his eyes.

During those hazy few moments before sleep, he peered through his eyelashes to the night sky. White shooting stars were racing through it. He smiled as he fell asleep.

When Shiro woke up, he was alone on the floor. That comforting warmth of another body was gone, the only embrace he felt was that of the white lace curtains. The world outside was quiet and still. The moon could still be seen in the pale morning sky. 

“I won’t forget you, Adam,” Shiro whispered, eyes trained on the sky. He waited for a sign- the ring of a bell, a shooting star, anything that might let him know that Adam was still near- but it never came.

Shiro turned so his back was against the wall and sighed. Half of the bed was eerily pristine, there were no crinkles or marks on the sheets. Adam’s wallet and glass of the water weren’t on the nightstand. Shiro’s throat tightened. He was already gone. It was no use, he was gone. 

Far out in the desert, a vulture took flight from the wreckage of a plane wedged in the ground. As it bet its wings, the tinkling of a bell could be heard.

The wreckage was easy to miss and often was during sweeps of the desert. Sandstorms often had it covered entirely. A mockery of a burial. 

Today the pilot inside stared up through the only window to the surface, his eye trained on the white moon. The moon would move, but his eye would not. The sand shifted, moons and suns eclipsed, the world moved on, but the pilot stayed. Hopeful. Always hopeful. 

**Author's Note:**

> my twitter: @adadshi
> 
> please check out the adashi fan fiction library: @adashicentral on twitter, tumblr and instagram


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